


Minds in Parallel

by CoronaTheBee



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 05:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13451970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoronaTheBee/pseuds/CoronaTheBee
Summary: The moment that his saber ignites, the Force shutters.





	Minds in Parallel

The moment that his saber ignites, the Force shutters.

 

_Death is powerful_ , he tells himself. Energy is escaping, tearing itself free from physical form and rippling out into the void. Shapeless, the lifeforce of his father pours out into the space between them.

 

Impressions come first. Regret, like a cold wind. Hollow and resigned. Guilt is twisted up alongside it. Bitterness and the weight of too many failures to tally. He can feel them building inside him as if the burden is his own.

 

Then a touch, so light he might have imagined it—if not for the shock of sensation that follows. Han is touching his face and father’s hands are calloused. Rough from a lifetime of grifting and near-misses and dishonest work.

 

A connection flickers to life between them for the first time.

 

His father’s mind is not what he expected. It’s orderly, more or less. Worn, but well maintained. Thoughts are few, even now, but they’re fully formed. Easier to follow alongside than most minds he’s encountered.

 

Brown eyes appear in their thoughts. They might have been his, but—instead it’s:

**_Princess_** , his father thinks.

 

Suddenly there’s so much clogging Han’s thoughts that he can hardly parse it. Just feels it in his chest. Aching warmth, something like resigned fondness. Then, something brighter. Shining and rare and deeply-held. The sight of mother in her white gowns, hair piled high. And the look on her face when he teases her: _You’re still short, you know. You’re not fooling anyone_. The perfect lines of her back as she stands poised before a crowd, undaunted. The ring of her voice as it pours out onto the floor of the Senate.

 

Somewhere, across the universe, he feels an echo. The same feelings repeated alongside clearer thoughts. They arrive steeped in sorrow so deep that it pulls his breath away. Mother’s connection to the Force was always strong, steady, and undeniable. In this instant, it’s overwhelming. _Han_ , her mind is screaming. Over and over. It pours over his father like a frantic wave. It rushes past Han’s unperceptive mind and slams into him instead. Disbelief, like a sickening lurch and then: **_Ben_** _, why? Ben!_

 

He grits his teeth against the overwhelming force of the pair of them. So improbably steeped in the Light. It’s too much. It hurts. It _burns_.

 

He thinks he hears screaming. A woman’s voice. _Mother?_ he wonders for a moment, like a child. He’s so disoriented. Overwhelmed. _No,_ the last scrap of his logic whispers. _She’s a galaxy away._ He clings to that. _It isn’t true._ Lifeblood is still pouring into the Force around him. Along with it, pain. Kylo wraps the shadow of it, in all its power, around himself. _I will endure this._

 

Emotions and thoughts, and then—a memory. It’s so faint. Even now, with proximity and all the raw emotion ripping through them, he can barely feel his father’s thoughts in the Force.

 

Flashes of silver and a sound. Familiar and alien at once—

 

All at once he remembers.

 

It was a blamy day on Naboo. They were at one of the thousands of lakes near his mother’s villa. It was a rare occasion: both his parents were on-world. They’d been near each other so little that they hadn’t even begun to argue yet.

 

His father had appeared, demanding as ever. This time he had decided that they had to spend time together.   His mother’s influence, again. Surely. Nevermind his responsibilities. Nevermind his evening meditations. But then, Han had never been a man of any particular reverence or regiment. It probably hadn’t even occurred to him that he was interrupting anything. And if it had, it likely would not have mattered much. Anger seeps in, coiling hot in the muscles of his shoulders; then and now. It leaps up so readily in his mind.

 

Suddenly, the memory is his father’s again. He’s looking up at a face that seems to be always scowling or blank. _Distance_. The concept, more than the word, crops up in his father’s thoughts. _Untouchable as Leia, in his own damnable way._

 

The thought flits away before Kylo can make anything of it. Instead his father’s brash voice rings out. _What’re you doin’ out here, kid?_

The child with his face, still so soft and weak, answers. _Meditating._ Then, just to fill the quiet, he adds, _I’m trying to quiet my energy. If I do it correctly, I won’t disturb the fish._ He chances a look at his father, rambling, _Not even if I walked through them._

 

His father scrubs at his face. _That right?_ He draws closer to the rocky shore. Propping a foot on the boulder the boy’s sitting on, he snorts. _That’s what Luke’s teaching you at that school, huh? How to surprise fish?_

When he’s observing alongside his father this way, he can feel the precise moment Han knows he’s said the wrong thing.

 

Whatever made the boy share a bit of his thoughts is gone in a flicker. His expression draws shut and he turns back to peering silently over the water.

 

With forced cheer, a younger Han presses on. _Alright, fine. Watch how it’s done._

 

There’s a smirk in his father’s voice that tips across his face. He wades in, clear water lapping over his knees. Haunching, he turns to hang over the shallows of the lake. Ben watches despite himself, amusement slowly overtaking his annoyance.

 

The memory shifts and— _He’s nervous. He just wants the kid to **listen** for a second. But he’s just not sure how to_ —Somehow he slips, overshot it and missed the damned fish he’d been aiming to catch.   Embarrassment and frustration—but then a sound catches him off guard.

 

Laughter.

 

There’s something so absurd about the sight of his father soaked and cursing. Laughter overtakes him, and he can feel it pour through him. It chases away, just for an instant, the darkness of doubt that is always clinging to his thoughts.

 

For a perfect moment, it’s just the sunset and the flicker of iridescent scales. The silver flashes of fish swirl around them both. They leap, filmy fins beat like wings as they flee into deeper waters.

 

A different emotion overtakes them then. Decades later, Kylo feels it alongside his father. So gruff and determined to make some sort of connection.

 

_My son._ Han thinks. _Ben._

 

Then, all at once, the touch is gone and so is his father.

 

Shrinking as he falls away into the smoke and darkness.


End file.
